Penn State's storied college football team on Saturday played its first game in nearly half a century without its revered head coach, a day after the school's trustees pledged to find the truth behind a child sex abuse scandal that claimed the coach's job and rattled one of the largest U.S. universities.

The university has been rocked to its core by the child-sex abuse scandal involving former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky. It cost legendary head coach Joe Paterno his job. Fans and players wanted to show their love for their school and for Paterno, while also displaying concern for victims of abuse.

Two university officials are accused of perjury, and Paterno and president Graham Spanier were fired for not doing enough to act on a 2002 report that Sandusky sodomized a young boy in the showers of the campus football complex.

The case has riveted the U.S., where college football is both a passion and a lucrative part of the economy in many communities, and where Penn State was seen by many as a program untainted by corruption during Paterno's tenure.

The scandal would be damaging enough to a university that prides itself on its integrity. That it involved Paterno, major college football's winningest coach, made it that much worse.

Instead of sprinting onto the field, the Penn State team marched out arm-in-arm through a corridor formed by the band and former Penn State players. Beaver Stadium was awash in blue the color associated with child-abuse prevention right down to the flags accompanying the band. More than $22,000 was collected for charities that support prevention of child abuse.

And the normally raucous atmosphere before the game was replaced by a moment of silence for the victims. Players from Penn State and rival Nebraska gathered at midfield before the game, kneeling together for a long moment in a quiet stadium.

"This has been one of the saddest weeks in the history of Penn State and my heart goes out to those who have been victimized. I share your anger and sorrow," new school president Rod Erickson said in a video played in the first quarter. "Although we can't go back to business as usual, our university must move forward. We are a community."

It was the first time in 46 years that Paterno was not leading the Nittany Lions, but his presence was still very much there. His son, Jay Paterno, the quarterbacks coach, paced the sidelines.

"We've had better weeks in our lives, obviously," the normally low-key Jay Paterno said after the game. "The world's kind of turned upside down, but I think our kids were resilient."

Asked about what he said to his parents in a letter delivered earlier in the day, the son choked up: "Just how proud of them I am, and, Dad, I wish you were here."

He walked away from the cameras just as the tears started to flow.

After falling behind 17-0, No. 12 Penn State rallied with two second-half touchdowns, sending the crowd of 107,903 largest of the year at Beaver Stadium into a frenzy. But the Nittany Lions fell short on their last two drives, and Nebraska had a 17-14 victory.

As the Penn State players disappeared into the tunnel for the last time this season, fans let out one more rousing cheer of, "We are ... Penn State!"

Paterno has not been implicated in the criminal investigation, but the school's athletic director, Tim Curley, and vice president, Gary Schultz, have both been charged with perjury and failing to report an incident of abuse in 2002 to authorities. Lawyers for the men say that they are innocent.

On Friday, the trustees met for the first time in public since the scandal broke last week. They opened with a show of support for Erickson. The school will keep searching for a permanent successor to Spanier.

Erickson pledged to appoint an ethics officer. The board also formed an investigative committee headed by trustee Kenneth Frazier, the CEO of pharmaceutical company Merck & Co. Inc. to dig into the allegations of wrongdoing.

President Barack Obama on Friday night called the assault allegations "heartbreaking" in his first public comments on the scandal."I think it's a good time for the entire country to do some soul-searching not just Penn State," Obama said at halftime of the North Carolina-Michigan State college basketball game. "People care about sports, it's important to us, but our No. 1 priority has to be protecting our kids."The school has said assistant football coach Mike McQueary, who said he saw Sandusky sodomizing a young boy in the team's showers, had received multiple threats. The school placed McQueary on administrative leave and said it would be "in the best interest of all" if McQueary did not attend the season's final home game on Saturday. The college's athletic department did not say who had threatened him.

McQueary told players by phone Friday that he was in a secluded location outside State College, The Harrisburg Patriot-News reported.

Penn State has one of America's largest and most loyal fan bases, drawing more than 100,000 people to its home games in State College, a community of less than 40,000 with the nickname Happy Valley. The team's success under Paterno has brought in millions of dollars in television broadcast rights, merchandising and more.

Sandusky served as Paterno's top defensive assistant for more than two decades. He abruptly retired in 1999, about a year after university police investigated a complaint by a mother upset that Sandusky had showered with and bear-hugged her 11-year-old son, the grand jury report said. That investigation produced no charges.

Authorities said Sandusky met many of the boys through The Second Mile, a charity he founded in 1977 to help at-risk youth.